The Dog May Be Lumpy, But At Least He Never Broke My Heart.

Tuesday.
We pick up two kittens from the shelter at 6:30 pm. Both are in cardboard boxes. Both have had surgery in the morning. One box is moving, the other not so much. Shelter lady says the female kitten (Violet) is still groggy. She'll be up and back to normal any minute. Really, really, soon.

At home, the male kitten (Vladimir) rockets from the box and roams the room. Violet is quiet. I lift her from the box and put her in the new cat bed. She walks slowly for a drink, lies down and sleeps for the next several hours.

I write a post about Sumeria. Make a joke about cat strollers. Stretch. Yawn. Think, better check on the destruction kittens before bed. Vladimir (kittens were named by the shelter, by the way, and fairly well, considering others were named things like "Wal-mart" and "Plebko22") is stalking a sock. Violet is sleeping.

I pick Violet up. Put her back down. Awake now, she flops straight down on the floor, and then drags entire length of two completely slack back legs behind her, pulling all her weight along with two tiny front legs.

Confusion and hand-wringing, a call to the 24 hour Animal Hospital. Twenty minute drive to pet hospital at 1:30 am. Watch a retrospective on the Night Stalker that is playing on the overhead monitors in the dim,empty waiting room. Assistant at desk wears a nametag that says "Violet". Coincidence. Then,

Vet says:

???? Did someone drop her? No? Odd. We'll keep her here and charge you 700 dollars by the morning. Probably it won't help. See you at 10 am!

**

Pathos: Blogger drives hither and yon across the city, crying, with tiny paralyzed kitten riding shotgun. Driving and crying. Crying and driving. Not looking in the carrier at the little alert eyes and the long, limp back legs stretched out on the blanket. Paraplegic kitty.

Wednesday.

I take the day off work and drive back to the animal hospital in the morning. Conference with two vets. Both say it's a mystery. They have never seen this happen with a kitten, ever. Both say the prognosis is guarded at best. She can no longer go to the bathroom on her own. I surrender the remainder of my bank account and load Violet up while they toss out words like "neurosurgeon" and "MRI". (They have neurosurgeons for cats?) They say probably that wouldn't help either.

Violet and I drive. Across the city is the shelter, where euthanasia awaits. I can't bring myself to drive there. I call my regular vet. He says "Let me see her".

Hope.

I drive in the opposite direction to vet. Dr. H says, well, hello little lady to the kitten, and to me he says, no feeling. None at all. Seen this twice in thirty-five years. Maybe a blood clot in spine. Hard to know. Kitten 's not going to walk again. Kindest to put her to sleep.

I knew this. I cry some more over a kitten we 've had less than twenty-four hours, and drive to the shelter.

Violets are my favorite flowers, now they will have a special meaning too.Sh*t, I'm sitting here crying, after being sick with the flu all week. But I can tell you this, you did the right thing. (cough, sniffle)

so sad, Vic. NO FAIR. Violet is chasing and stalking her little heart out in cat heaven :) and much better than something happening a week or two down the road-but still... NO FAIR and life really does suck sometimes.

I've had two instances where anesthesia effed up my dogs. This last time, he didn't walk for over a day, and even now his back legs give up for no reason. The vets always say "Oh that's weird, it surely has nothing to do with what we did here!" but I'm starting to believe it's some kind of hush hush conspiracy thing.

But, to be fair, I believe a lot of things are hush hush conspiracy things.

Every time I try to type hush, I type hugh. Hugh Hugh conspiracy. (Jackman, no doubt.)

I'm sending you hugs from over here. Losing an animal, no matter how long you knew her for, is terrible. You did every possible thing there was to be done though. I'm really sorry.-b

HorriblenessNow I feel like the worlds biggest jerk for ditching on cat/kittens for the last 10 years of my life.

Tiny little kitten.

I can see the lady offering a replacement though. Kids usually aren't all that empathetic, Olivia would be happy with any animal that she could dress up or put into odd places like the pantry shelf or her bedroom desk drawer. Hopefully everything's alright now, Vic!

A similar thing happened to me in kindergarten. My sister and I picked out to precious kittens from a pound and brought them home. Unfortunately, the kittens had been found cold and sick and too young to be away from their mother. However, the mother had not been found and had probably abandoned them. According to Lousiana pet shelters, animals must be neutered before leaving the shelter. But the kittens were too young to have the surgery. We brought them both home but they never recovered. They mostly sat down and didn't move. Then, while I was in school, the girl kitten died. Hers was a more invasive procedure and so she died first. So my mom took the boy to the vet. Apparently, he also had some problems and was dying. So the boy was put down and both were buried in unmarked graves behind the vet's. Never seeing them dead seemed to be a problem to me. Despite the fact that we had the kittens for only a week, it seemed like they were always playing in my peripheral vision. I think it doesn't matter how long you've had a pet, once you make the commitment to loving them, it's too late and eventually they will leave you devastated. Still, I wouldn't trade my time with them for the world. Hope this helps.